Various kinds of grappling apparatus have been used in the plant nursery industry to lift and move balled trees and shrubs. All are characterized by some form of arrangement of movable jaws for gripping bagged root ball of a tree and powered means for lifting the tree and moving a rotating clamped jaw in various angular and linear degrees of freedom.
Unfortunately, many of these kinds of apparatus suffer from the practical shortcomings of limiting the operator visibility during use, by reason of a complete lack or insufficiency of ability to rotate the clamping arrangement in the vertical plane so as to raise the plant (or other load) out of the operator's line of sight.
A number of known devices exhibit a fair degree of maneuverability of the clamped article, but employ undependable or costly articulation means, such as pivot rotary actuators for moving the clamped tree about. The present arrangement also develops greater power and is easier to repair than prior such devices to a virtual height where the vehicle operator has a clear view of the load being carried and can satisfy himself that the lad is properly gripped by the clamping means.